HANCOCK — The Calumet Copper Kings had a couple of goals in mind when they traveled to Hancock Thursday night.
“One, we knew a win would give us a share of the conference title,” Calumet coach Mike Ojala said after his team's 67-42 win over the Bulldogs. “Two, we wanted to keep our ...

BARAGA — The Ontonagon Gladiators closed the regular season with a 78-49 win over the Baraga Vikings Thursday in Baraga.
Tanner Balcomb led the winners with 21 points, while James Domitrovich had 17 points and Dawson Pollard added 15.
Ontonagon (9-11, 6-9) outscored Baraga 15-3 in the ...

L’ANSE — Slow and steady wins the race: It’s an old fable, turned mantra that parents teach kids. And while its plausibility when applied to an actual race seems slim, the philosophy worked well for the Houghton Gremlins as they defeated L’Anse 46-31 for their fourth straight ...

HOUGHTON — It’s now a waiting game for the No. 20 Michigan Tech Huskies.
With a 67-57 loss to the Ferris State Bulldogs in the GLIAC quarterfinals Wednesday at the Wood Gym, Tech’s future is now in the hands of the NCAA selection committee. The Huskies were ranked No. 4 in the ...

DETROIT — Michigan Tech advanced to the GLIAC tournament semifinals with an 88-74 victory at No. 3 seed Wayne State Wednesday. The Huskies have now won all three meetings of the season against the Warriors and earned a trip to the GLIAC final four for the second straight season.
“We ...

PAINESDALE — Like many underdog teams of the past, the Baraga Vikings kept hanging around Wednesday night against the Chassell Panthers in Class D district semifinal play.
Baraga gave the No. 6 state-ranked Panthers all they wanted before falling to a 44-36 defeat — leaving Chassell coach ...

PAINESDALE — Ontonagon continued its steady play of late and advanced to the Class D district finals with an easy 60-28 win over Dollar Bay Wednesday.
Ontonagon coach Dick Franti was more than happy to be playing for a title Friday night against Chassell.
“You can't win if you're not ...

BELLAIRE — Pontiac Notre Dame Prep thought it had won the program's first MHSAA skiing championship since 2006.
Instead, Houghton-Hancock roared back to take its second crown in program history and first since 2010.
The Fighting Irish led by four after the morning's slalom event. Even ...

HOUGHTON — In the 1997 NBA Finals, the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz were tied at 2-2 when Michael Jordan woke up for Game 5 with the flu. If you’re a basketball fan, you know what happens next. Heck, if you’re a sports fan, you probably know what happens next. The flu game. Jordan ...

CALUMET — Three-point shooting is usually not the first thing that enters the mind when it comes to discussing the Calumet Copper Kings. Instead, it's their suffocating man-to-man defense, the All-U.P. caliber season Matt Ojala has been having or the overpowering low-post presence of Cooper ...

REPUBLIC — Dollar Bay used a balanced scoring effort to defeat Republic-Michigamme 65-55 in a Copper Mountain Conference game on Tuesday in Republic.
The Blue Bolts (19-0, 14-0) were led by Jaden Janke with 18 points and Devin Schmitz and Jakob Iacono with 17 each.
Brandon Thompson was ...

Ewen-Trout Creek clinched the Porcupine Mountain Division title with a convincing 67-46 win Tuesday night over a team it might see again next week, Wakefield-Marenisco.
E-TC's Jake Witt was unstoppable, scoring 33 points and grabbing 24 rebounds, while the Cardinals faced the reality of being ...

HOUGHTON — The first half of No. 20 Michigan Tech's 80-63 win over Ferris State on Feb. 15 was peak Michigan Tech. The Huskies beat every Ferris State defensive rotation with precise ball movement and were on fire from 3, making 7 of 13 attempts. It all added up to 54 points — the most Tech ...

HOUGHTON — The GLIAC Player of the Year award will be decided later this season. It's likely a two-person race between Ferris State's Zach Hankins, who earned the honor last year and is having another stellar season (14.9 points, 9.4 rebounds, 3.3 blocks per game) and Michigan Tech's Kyle ...

CALUMET — Someone needed to step up. Literally anyone. That was Julie Filpus' halftime message to her team after the Houghton Gremlins scored just 14 points and shot 4 of 21 as they trailed Calumet at the half. The speech nearly took all 10 minutes of the halftime break, and by the time ...

PAINESDALE — A young but poised Ontonagon squad made most of the major plays on the way to a 54-41 opening round Class D district win over Lake Linden-Hubbell Monday night.
Ontonagon coach Dick Franti said his team didn't play a perfect game but played well enough.
“It wasn't ...

BELLAIRE — The Houghton-Hancock girls ski team edged Notre Dame prep 84-88 to take home first place in the MHSAA Division 2 state finals Monday at Schuss Mountain in Bellaire.
The team was down by four points after the first slalom race, but then made a comeback in the afternoon events. ...

L’ANSE — It has often been said it’s hard to beat the same team three times in one season.
The L’Anse girls showed just how difficult that is by defeating the Hancock Bulldogs 36-30 in a Class C district basketball opener Monday night
L’Anse (9-12), which lost to the Bulldogs ...